


Just a Little Lost Among the Bones

by Alexdoesthings



Series: One shot before canon [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Berserker Derek, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt Derek, M/M, Mentioned Kate Argent, Mentioned Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexdoesthings/pseuds/Alexdoesthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott's been taken to La Iglesia and the gang charges in to get him back, but Kate's Berserkers scatter the group. When one corners Stiles after a nasty encounter with Malia that breaks part of the skull over its face, Stiles finds something unbelievable under neither.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Little Lost Among the Bones

**Author's Note:**

> The came out of the newest episode's ending and thinking "what that's what Kate did that to Derek? Couple that with the idea on Tumblr that the Derek they pulled out of the wall is actually a doppelganger of some sort that's running out of juice (and of course Sterek because only the power of human love can bring Derek back (and my shipping goggles are suctioned onto my face like a second set of eyes)) and you get this!
> 
> This might have a second chapter featuring Braeden too, we'll see.

The berserker turned its head toward him slowly, danger and power thrumming off it in waves. Stiles tensed to run but he froze as the crack Malia had made in the skull earlier came into sight. It had broken off in a triangle over the man’s nose, revealing his eyes around its jagged edges. Stiles knew those eyes. The skull had hidden them from perfectly from view, but now that a part of it had been shattered, he could see the light green kaleidoscope of color so unique to one Derek Hale.

“But that’s not possible,” he muttered, lips numb and fingers shaking around the aluminum bat.

The Derek they'd brought back had seemed a little off, but they'd all assumed it was because of whatever Kate did to make him younger again. They were wrong, it was a double, a stand in, a fake. The real Derek felt different, even with the strange, chilling aura of death surrounding him in this state, more real somehow.

His eyes weren't as Stiles knew them, with that warm spark of humanity in them, they were cold and lifeless. Whatever Kate had done to make him this way had stripped his humanity. Derek advanced on him, bones clacking together with a hollow sound as he moved.

“Derek,” Stiles said still in shock, never looking away from his eyes, “It’s me, Stiles.”

Derek didn’t seem to understand him. He kept advancing. Stiles moved with him, step for step, backwards, keeping the same distance between them. His bat was held across his chest like a shield, but it felt flimsy in his hands against the raw, deathly power before him.

“Derek, come on,” Stiles urged, “this isn’t you, you know that.”

He felt rock scrape hard and unyielding against his back and his heel hit the wall. Stiles swallowed hard, a pit of dread growing in his stomach. He glanced left and right to find his exits all closed off by the very structure he'd thought would protect him. If he tried to run, Derek would have him before he could take more than two steps.

“Derek, I know you’re in there and I really need you to snap out of it,” Stiles said as he forced himself to breath evenly and keep his head.

Derek didn’t seem in a lot of hurry to finish Stiles off. His steps were slow and even, his prey cornered and easily toyed with. The spiked bone protruding from his hand like an extra-long claw glinted in the silvery light of the full moon as he raised it lazily from his side. He had two steps to go before he’d be within perfect slicing range.

“If won't do it for me then you have to for Scott because whatever Kate did to you, she did it to him too. You know what she'll make him do now and there's no way the Derek I know is going to let him become a killer,” Stiles said, whatever he was thinking pouring out of his mouth in a sincere stream of words as his brain ground out fruitless, wild escape plans.

There was a tilt to Derek’s head and Stiles could have sworn he saw a flash of familiarity in Derek’s eyes. It was gone as fast as it had come though as he took another step closer and the jagged spike neared Stiles’s face. He gritted his teeth, his mind on overdrive fighting against the insistent panic trying to crowd out everything else.

“You’re not a killer either,” Stiles blurted out and Derek did stop at that, the sharp tip hovering just over skin at the corner of Stiles’s jaw.

Stiles could almost feel the second he had left ticking away, but he had Derek’s attention now. He just needed to wield the right words against Kate’s spell and they all might get out of this alive. The belief in that idea filled him with courage that felt like liquid fire licking through his veins and his limbs stopped trembling. The certainty and simplicity of his options, life or death, straightened his spine confidently and he spoke the names slowly as he said, “Erica and Boyd.”

Stiles saw them register briefly in Derek’s eyes, pain flashing behind them, and he continued more certainly, “What happened to them wasn't your fault. Yeah, you've messed up, but you try so hard to make up for it. You searched for them for months and, even if everyone else had written them off, you didn't give up trying. You did the same for me, remember?”

Derek’s eyes were skirting around Stiles’s face, unreadable but no longer murderous and unfazed. It was as though he was looking at a picture of someone that tickled his memory but he couldn't recall where he’d seen them before.

“I know you’d never hurt me,” Stiles said, feeling in his core that he only had to push a little more.

Stiles gathering all his courage as he shut his eyes and slowly, carefully exposed his neck to demonstrate the point as he said, with as much sincerity as he could pack around the slight trembling of his voice, “I trust you, Derek.”

Stiles held still for what felt like an eternity before he heard a dull hissing sound echoing from behind the skull where Derek’s mouth was trying to form the first letter of Stiles’s name. Relief burst in Stiles’s chest as the death spike fell away. He opened his eyes to see Derek’s narrowed in concentration and frustration.

“That’s it, fight it,” Stiles said, giddy, not caring that he sounded like a bad sci-fi movie.

Stiles, fingers frantic, grabbed the broken pieces of bone, trying to yank them apart with all his strength. He could feel it giving slowly under his fingers and Derek’s eyes closed tight, either from pain or on impulse to protect them, Stiles wasn't sure. Derek’s bone clad hand joined Stiles’s and the brittle material shattered apart with a loud cracking. Stiles practically threw it to the ground before his hands were all over Derek’s open, shocked face.

He found his own face mirroring it as he stared at the real Derek before him. The other seemed such a flimsy copy next to the true flesh and blood original that Stiles had come to know so well. Stiles found a disbelieving laugh bubbling up from his mouth. Derek’s hands came up to cup Stiles’s cheeks, the proximal phalanx of some long dead creature poking sharply into his skin, but Stiles couldn't have cared less at that moment.

They were both breathing hard, the whole ordeal almost a physical effort akin to a marathon. That was when Stiles noticed that their noses were nearly bushing, a charged point of heat hinting at possibilities of more. He blinked at Derek, his mouth going slack with the vivid accompanying mental image. His eyes had not left Derek’s since they’d locked a few moments before and his gaze was becoming so intense Stiles almost wanted to look away.

Then he felt Derek tense and looked over his shoulder to lock eyes instead with the shining blue of Malia’s mostly transformed face. Her claws were raised and she radiated protectiveness and the promise of death. Stiles heart almost stopped at the sight.

“Malia, no, he’s not-” but Stiles didn't get a chance to finish.

Derek dodged by rolling to one side, her claws scraping shallowly against flesh as they passed him. He kept his momentum and shoved to his feet, taking off in a dazed run that was all survival instinct.

“Derek, wait,” Stiles called, his body following the movement as he made it, his hand reaching uselessly after him.

He was halfway through shoving off the hard packed earth to regain his own feet, when Malia’s strong arms wrapped around him, restraining him. He clawed at her, trying to pursue Derek. Everything muscle in his body was straining toward him and, had he not been preoccupied, he would have felt a flash of pride at dragging her along behind him for a few seconds before she readjusted her footing.

“That thing was going to kill you Stiles,” she was saying with a gravely, animal edge to her voice.

He didn’t want to hear a word she said right now. Everything about her repulsed him and he turned in her grip to shove at her chest furiously as he yelled, “Don’t ever touch me again!”

The hatred in his face caught her off guard. She stared at him, shocked, her hands going limp around him. He fought his way out and ran after Derek as fast as his legs would take him. He left her in his wake, heart breaking and world rocking as the moon called her animal side to run.

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out on Tumblr [here](http://alexdoesthings.tumblr.com/)


End file.
